Painfully Aware

If someone shoots you with a gun, that's physical violence. Possibly physical death. We all understand those scary concepts and we know it's bad to do that to each other.

If someone says "Give me your money or I'll shoot you," that's the threat of physical violence if you don't allow them to do financial violence instead. That's a mugging, and it's easily understood that's bad too.

If someone breaks into your home and takes your things, that's financial violence without physical violence. You don't even have to have physically been there but the burglar still harmed you, even if indirectly. The things that were taken likely cost money to replace and you need money to live.

So we've talked about physical violence and we've talked about economic violence. Physical is more immediately terrifying because the effects can be felt immediately. Economic can take time to fully affect you, as bills come due and/or biological needs aren't met, so instead of short-term terror it's more long-term dread.

This is why firing people just so your company can make more money is effectively violence. So is keeping wages low; that's violence too. It's financial violence, and despite being dressed up in business casual it's right there alongside mugging and burglary. The company has decided they get to have money that you would normally be using to live.

It doesn't matter if you signed a contract which says a company has the right to exploit you. That's just mugging with extra steps and lawyers. "Get underpaid by us or starve outdoors" is just as bad as the "your money or your life" threat of a thug holding you at gunpoint.

A step further is economic violence. That's where people have constructed or corrupted entire social systems to the point where they automatically get to do financial violence to other people. This one is much more complicated, but a familiar example is feudalism: The royal class is culturally entitled to a portion of the money that the commoners make, just because the laws say so. These laws are written and enforced by the entitled people committing the economic violence, usually with the threat of physical or financial violence if their subjects don't comply.

If all of this sounds too familiar, then I believe you get my point here.